


The Ex-Assassin's Guide to the Modern World

by anomalousity



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, bucky is a conflicted banana that feels left out, tony is reasonably cautious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-26
Updated: 2015-03-26
Packaged: 2018-03-19 16:36:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3616773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anomalousity/pseuds/anomalousity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There have been five missions in the past three months, and he wasn’t a part of any of them.</p><p>He’s memorized the lineup on Fox, USA, HBO, and Showtime, watched all four seasons of Game of Thrones, finished Parks and Recreation, and basically any other primetime popular television program. He’s caught up on his history, both American and global. He’s versed in common vernacular, and knows what is no longer okay to say. He’s not physically disabled; he has working arms and legs, and works out for five hours a day with Steve, if Steve’s around, or with Jarvis, if he’s not.</p><p>He’s an asset- as much as he still cringes at the term –and an unused one at that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ex-Assassin's Guide to the Modern World

**Author's Note:**

> Yell at me on [tumblr](http://frouvaire.tumblr.com) .

There have been five missions in the past three months, and he wasn’t a part of any of them.

He’s memorized the lineup on Fox, USA, HBO, and Showtime, watched all four seasons of Game of Thrones, finished Parks and Recreation, and basically any other primetime popular television program. He’s caught up on his history, both American and global. He’s versed in common vernacular, and knows what is no longer okay to say. He’s not physically disabled; he has working arms and legs, and works out for five hours a day with Steve, if Steve’s around, or with Jarvis, if he’s not.

Bucky knows almost as much about modern engineering as Tony Stark, if he’s not as inventive. He’s skilled in sleuth and deception like Natalia, and he’s got just as much brawn as Steve and the Hulk. He’s an asset- as much as he still cringes at the term –and an unused one at that.

Maybe it’s like he suspected when Tony let him move in with Steve. Maybe the Avengers and crew just don’t like him.

He’s never been particularly bothered by being disliked. God knows he had to adjust back to being “Bucky” using that particular trait in no small amounts. He’s used to being called a traitor by news networks and the media, and disgusting for coming out with Steve a few months back.

Bucky sighs and slumps in his chair until he’s shoulders are squished uncomfortably on the slick leather cushion. “Jarvis,” he calls to the room in general. “Is Steve here?”

Jarvis, brutally honest as he is, replies, “No, sir.”

“Do you know when he’s getting back?”

“Mr. Stark believes that they should be finished with the Fomalhauti, sir.”

Bucky groans and turns to burrow his face into the cushions. He remembers to mumble a, “thanks, Jarvis,” before forcing himself to get up and find something to do.

It’s just that lying around all the time is so _boring_. He’s been learning, which he supposes is all right, but he doesn’t like that he can’t apply it. He went out dancing last week with Steve at a gay club up in the Village, he shops, he does meet-and-greets, he helps old ladies across the street and punches assholes in the jaw for muttering something about people they’ve got no business muttering shit about.

But it’s not the same as going to Leningrad and taking out nine ex-KGB agents in under twenty minutes with nothing but a Bowie knife and a couple of smoke bombs. As much as he knows that Steve and Nat can handle themselves, he wants to have their backs. They’d both kill him if he ever said it, but sometimes he can’t see Steve’s muscles and height, and sometimes he sees Nat as the seventeen-year-old who passed all of the Red Room’s tests without breaking a sweat.

They’d tell him they have it covered, he supposes. They’d say they’d watch each other’s backs. Bucky knows that they’re right, and that he doesn’t have reason to worry, but he _does_ and he _hates_ it. He hates that Stark doesn’t trust him enough to have him in the field, he hates that he agrees, he hates that Bruce sometimes stares at him with nothing but pity in his eyes and he hates the way Steve curls around him, when it should be him curling around Steve.

He hates not being able to do what he wants to do. He feels restricted.

“Jarvis,” he calls again. “Can you patch me through to Steve’s comm?”

“I don’t think that would be wise, sir.”

“Stark’s, then?”

Jarvis doesn’t reply, but Bucky hears the faint sound of a dialup a few seconds later, followed by the sound of whooshing wind. “This better be fucking good, Barnes,” Stark grumbles, voice echoing through the room.

Bucky just rolls his eyes. “Can you connect me to Steve?” he asks, then, “please?” because he can be nice, even to a guy who seems to only display hostility towards him.

At first, Stark doesn’t say anything. After a few moments, however, he seems to make up his mind. “Make it quick,” he mutters, before the same dialup noise drowns the sound of his voice, only to be replaced by a pained sounding groan.

Immediately, Bucky’s alert. “Steve?” Oh God, if he’d been there, he could’ve taken out the motherfucker himself. “C’mon pal, say something.”

There’s another grunt, then the sound of someone gurgling their own blood, then the sound of footsteps hitting the pavement to quick. “Buck?” Steve asks, confused and breathless. “What’s wrong?”

“Are you hurt?” Bucky asks, because making sure Steve’s okay is more important than feeling better about his not being there.

Steve giggles a little before answering. “Shit, Buck, I can’t believe you missed aliens,” he says, sounding awestruck. “Last time we fought aliens, they were ugly fucks, but these one’s look like the stuff they described on that old radio show.”

Bucky feels himself grinning back as he pictures it. Gangly squid-looking things with pinchers and too many eyes; _those_ were real aliens. “Remember when we stayed up all night listening to The Mercury Theatre?” he asks, snorting a little as he asks. “Did you see what they did to _War of the Worlds_ , Stevie? The future fuckin’ sucks at making movies.”

“Oh, that’s nothing compared to- _oof_ , fuck, hang on a sec, Bucky.”

He listens to Steve’s footsteps and the heavy sound of another pair (two pairs? Three?) of feet shuffling, grunts and hisses and weird gibberish moaning resounding over Steve’s headset. The thing releases a painful screech when Steve kills it; Bucky hears it fall to the ground and stay there. Steve catches his breath a few seconds later.

“They have green blood, Buck. Like Spock.”

Bucky snorts. “Punk like you, it’s not a surprise you ended up being a nerd too.”

“You’re the one who wanted to watch it with me, jerk,” Steve bites back, but Bucky can hear his grin. “When I get back, we need to watch _Star Wars._ Nat and I think you’d love Han.”

“Yeah well, just hurry up over there, asshole.” Bucky slides his fingers through his hair and sucks on his lower lip before murmuring, “Don’t get hurt, Stevie.”

He can definitely hear Steve’s stupid dopey smile when he replies, “I won’t.” Then, “See you later, Bucky.”

The line goes dead before Bucky can say it back.

The television is still on in the living room, but he can’t be bothered to go back and shut it off, so he settles on wandering to the bathroom. A shower wouldn’t hurt him, he supposes, but maybe a bath would be a better way to pass the time. Sam had taken him shopping for therapeutic shit that smells like lavender, and he still hasn’t used any of it. He figures now’s as good a time as any.

  He gets it ready quickly, and before waiting for the water to cool down from scalding to pleasantly hot, he slips out of his clothes and settles in. He ties his hair up before sinking until his chin touches the waterline, breathing bubbles into the surface of the water.

It smells wonderful, but it isn’t doing shit to calm the storm of horrible thoughts in his head; what if they don’t think he’s ready for combat because he’s weak? What if, God, Steve thinks he’s still going to break? He’s seen the way Steve looks at him with that dumb worried look, and rationally, he knows that he’s probably going to be getting that for the rest of his life. Even Sam got him to admit that he’s been through more shit than anyone deserves, no matter how poorly he thinks of himself.

Perhaps Stark can see that he’s a ticking time bomb waiting to go off. He knows that there’re cameras all over the tower; maybe Stark has Jarvis monitoring his and Steve’s to make sure Bucky won’t get triggered and kill Steve in the middle of the night. Bucky doesn’t blame him. He’s scared of that too, so scared that sometimes Steve wakes up in the middle of the night only to ask him if he wants to talk about it because he just knows.

And that, that’s another thing Bucky hates. He hates that Steve dealt with the bullshit he has to deal with. The dissonance that happens when he looks down at his hands and finds that they don’t match, or the dissociation when he accidentally slips into Russian with Natalia and doesn’t notice because Natalia slips right with him; he hates that Steve had to adjust to the future by himself, and hates that Steve had to figure ‘it’ out by himself, whatever ‘it’ is.

He hates that he can’t go back in time and change anything, because he’s actually kind of grateful for some of it.

The serum let him live as long as Steve, if not close to as long. He’ll be able to age with him, if Steve’ll have him. The War and a team of understanding outcasts let them do what they’d never been able to and be together the way they wanted to; something Bucky could count on one hand if he reviewed the twenty some-odd years of his being infatuated with his best friend before the war. He’s grateful that he’s made it to modern times, where being queer- rather, being bisexual isn’t something that gets you killed. He’s grateful that he didn’t fully come back during the Cold War, when he would’ve been alone and executed for treason. He’s happy that he lives in a time where he’s, well, not exempt from his history, but not blamed either, and classified as a victim of torture, rather than a mass-murderer and a terrorist.

He’s happy that he can even think like this without having his wits shocked away from him for the high crime of autonomy.

Bucky tells Jarvis to play some music, and something from the eighties comes on. Queen, Bucky thinks. He really likes them. He likes that he got to listen to them, but doesn’t like that the singer’s been gone so long.

It’s not long before he’s drifting off, leaning his head back over the rim of the tub and letting the jets massage him to sleep.

And when he wakes up, Steve’s sitting on the toilet filling out the crossword.

“Hey Stevie,” Bucky says, trying to cover up a yawn and failing entirely.

Steve glances down at him before shooting him a grin. “Hey yourself, handsome,” he replies, wiggling his eyebrows like some lecherous old man from a Woody Allen flick.

Bucky snorts and squirms in the tub, surprised the water’s still as warm as it is. He sits back and makes room on the other side before looking up at Steve. “Want to come in?” he asks, doing a little shimmy, uncaring of how idiotic he probably looks.

Steve rolls his eyes, but sets his crossword aside and quickly divests himself of his clothes. He hops in not a moment later, big body upsetting some of the water onto the floor. Bucky doesn’t care too much; he crawls over and settles his back against Steve’s chest, and squeezes Steve’s fingers when he knits them with Bucky’s.

They’re silent for a while, relaxed. It isn’t until Bucky’s starting to doze again, and Steve’s peppering light kisses onto the back of Bucky’s neck that he murmurs, “Tony’s thinking about letting you in on the next mission.”

“Mmm?” Bucky hums, attentive, but too lazy to form words.

“Something about a set of mutant children in Siberia, I think. The dossier said ‘Project Miracle’ but the details of the project suggest the children are descended from mutant parents.” Steve sighs, it tickles the back of Bucky’s head. “We’re extracting them from the base they’re being transported to in a couple weeks.”

“Huh,” Bucky hums in response, already working through the bases he knows and the ones he learned by being Hydra’s fist. “You okay with that?”

“With what?”

“Me tagging along, punk.”

Steve snorts, smothers it against Bucky’s skin. His other hand is sliding up and down Bucky’s ribs and he’d probably be worked up if he weren’t so damn sleepy. “’Course I am, jerk. You and me, remember?”

Bucky sighs, and turns around to press a kiss to the corner of Steve’s mouth. “Yeah, Stevie,” he replies. “You and me.”


End file.
